


Post-Election Blues

by Eliot_L



Category: Longmire (TV)
Genre: Caught-Up-To-2016 AU, Current Events, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gratuitous Smut, Gratuitously Imagistic Language, Handcuffs (Mention), Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 08:46:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8526574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliot_L/pseuds/Eliot_L
Summary: She needs to stop imagining the future, and force herself to remember there's still beauty in the world.





	

An hour since last call. Henry's TV perched precariously on the unplugged jukebox. When they had stained Florida red, Henry left the bottle, bless his heart.

A drawn-looking man in a gray suit against a field of blue. " _...listen to me, everyone should head home. Get some sleep, we'll have more to say tomorrow._ "

A clutch of oil workers half booed and half cheered the announcement, out of place among the few remaining troubled faces, and Cady felt her stomach lurch. Quick-step out to the hallway, ladies' room, hand over face, _not here, not here, I'm not here_. Some small relief, catharsis, cold porcelain. She splashed water on her face and looked for the bottle of mouthwash hidden in the cabinet, behind stacked rolls of toilet paper and brown-wrapped towels. In the mirror, nothing was different. A little smudge under the eyes, perhaps. She could be forgiven that.

Arms wrapped around her cold, empty body, she stuck to the edges on the way back in. Glowing across the room, a wall of flags, a man with white hair and a wife and too much certainty. Surprised to see Mathias leaning against the bar, quiet words with Henry, head tilted towards the table of oilmen flush with vulgar toasts. Surprised but grateful.

"Hey." Cold glass of water sweating onto a deckel in place of her empty shotglass. She tried to smile, but the machine was rusty. "Pretty late for you to be on duty, huh?"

"Night like this, wouldn't want things to get outta hand."

" _...congratulated us, it's about us, on our victory._ " Cheers erupted behind them, whooping, slurred slogans, she did not turn around. He didn't either, but propped one hand passive on his sidearm. For whose benefit, she wondered. She shut her eyes, but it was all still there.

When she opened them, a few people had trickled out of the bar and Henry had shut off the TV set, to the consternation of some. "Alright, folks, you do not have to go home, but you cannot stay here." One breath from drowning in thought, putting up chairs, small walls of busyness against the deluge. The sound of Henry sweeping, a rhythmic comfort in the quiet.

Chair by chair, Cady and Mathias unconsciously coordinated, meeting in the middle of the bar. "Give you a ride home?" His voice almost lost under the clatter and ding of the till.

"No, I'm fine. Just tired."

"Well, Henry took your car keys while you were gone, so it's that or a long walk."

"Henry, I'm fine, seriously." Her raised voice did not distract Henry from his counting.

"You are not fooling anyone, Cady. Your car will be here tomorrow." Her eyes met his in the mirror, an unwinnable argument.

Jacket, purse, check, no car keys. _Dammit, Henry_.

Mathias leaning by the swinging gate, arms folded, wearing a rakish grin. "C'mon, princess, Henry's not gonna like it if I have to drag you out of here in handcuffs." She blushed at the thought and her imagination ran with it, not stopping until they pulled up outside her darkened house. Casting about for something, anything to get her back in her body, out of her head where worst-case scenarios played out in a palimpsest from economic downturn to outright civil war.

Mired in uncertain silence, Cady's door remained closed and Mathias shut the engine off. "Something on your mind?"

A breath in, a delaying tactic. "Come in for a bit?" She watched the muscles in his jaw tense and release as he considered it. "I could use the company."

Mathias scoffed, closing his eyes and getting out of the car. Her door opened and she slid out, dizzy as she stood. Bracing her heels against the curb, leaning against the side of the car, filling herself with the cold night air. "You okay?"

"Not really." His hand was still on the door next to her, his shadow across her body under the streetlamp. She watched his polished black shoe as it scuffed the dirt and heard his voice say something uselessly consoling, but by then her finger had threaded itself through one of his belt loops and she had leaned in close enough, a pause between words and it was done. Hemmed in on both sides by his arms, shaded by closeness, safe, one hand reaching out to stroke the zip of his trousers as he sucked her lower lip between his teeth.

A slight gasp, "We better get inside before I have to book you for public indecency." She ducked under his arm, courage renewed, leaving him leaning against the car. Looked both ways out of habit in the silent street, left the gate open behind her and pulled her house keys out.

The dark unfamiliar of the house accepted them. Objects sloughed off like snakeskin as they sought underneath for smooth, bright points of contact. He turned the bedside lamp on expecting in her eyes a frightened rabbit but instead she glowed, fire from within. Her mouth improvising a path down his body pausing to find his hipbone, the sinewed angles of his thigh, waves lapping at driftwood. Pulling her up before he drowned completely, a half-whispered question and she leaned to pull something from a drawer, holding Mathias' shoulder for balance. A small, squishy-sounding tear and she rolled the thin film over his cock, wrapping one balletic leg around him, but he laughed at this ambition and walked her backwards, slowly capsizing them onto the bed. He loomed over her, pulling her hips closer, finding the right angle and pushing his full length inside her slowly, cradling her body's shuddering gasp. Cady felt some part of her escape gravity's pull.

_This._

  
_Here._

  
_Now._

  
_Yes._

  
_Yes._ Mathias' rhythm pulled her back into her body, each impact ringing like a church bell in the blood. She pushed one hand back against the headboard, bracing herself against his movement, and the other down between them, stroking smooth circles around her clit to help the slow resonance build to cacophony. Feeling watched, she shut her eyes and pulled him closer. As her senses launched her violently into the weightless space of orgasm, she snapped her head to one side, crying out and twisting under Mathias' weight. Several deep breaths, and she shuddered to a stop while he continued. Propped up on one elbow, she tucked a fold of dark hair over his shoulder, filled the silence with her whispered imaginings from the ride over. The way he would have put the handcuffs on her -- slowly, letting her hear every click, just tight enough. What might have happened next as she knelt in the gravel of the parking lot, or felt the cold hood of a car against her cheek as he took her from behind. A story in fragments, brief but effective, Mathias strained against her in a stifled moan, swearing under his breath, the pair a collapsed pile of limbs.

Some mild disentangling, tenderness and practicalities. Not much convincing before he agreed to stay, curled around each other in the innocence of exhaustion.  
_______________

The bed's emptiness woke her first, not the slam of the back screen door. Behind curtains, grey-dark morning, blue uniform shirt still flung across the chair. Well, that was something. She pulled pajamas on over her fragile-seeming flesh.

Out back, her fingers on the stair rail burned small spots in the frost. He was barefoot, in blue trousers and a white undershirt, smoke from his cigarette curling up into the rosy eastern haze. She slipped in behind him on the stair above, warmth against warmth.

"Sun's still gonna rise today, in case you were worried." He leaned back into her quiet, ironic laugh and she kissed the back of his head. She wrapped her arms around him to see if the morning chill had touched the surface of his skin.

"Maybe." One hand over his heart, he covered it with his own. "Maybe I was." Breaths falling into step as the sky turned red.


End file.
